DIY cookie butter is darker in color than its commercial counterpart, but the taste is spot-on.

If you've never heard of cookie butter, you're missing out. Think the smooth consistency of peanut butter with a gingery cookie taste. Pure heaven on a spoon.

Use it as a dip for pretzels or apples, smear it on waffles or eat it straight from the jar if you like.

There are two main brands on the market: Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter and Lotus Biscoff European Cookie Spread. Within the past few years, these spreads have become so common that you can even find the Lotus brand at Walgreens. But I found out that re-creating cookie butter in my own kitchen was easier said than done.

My first attempt started with a delicious-sounding recipe from Food Network magazine. It looked promising with a cocktail of gingersnaps, shortbread cookies and graham crackers. Blended in a food processor with water, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and coconut milk, the consistency was too runny and the flavor tasted nothing like the Lotus or Trader Joe's brands.

The search ended with a recipe from bettycrocker.com that finally satisfied my craving for a homemade spread.

■ Biggest surprise: That the first attempt failed so badly. But I loved cookie butter too much to give up. With dozens of recipes online, I finally settled on one that featured Lotus Biscoff cookies. I first had these cookies on a flight coming home from Panama City. They are the cookies used in Lotus's cookie butter (go figure), so I thought sticking with these exact cookies would give me the most authentic-tasting cookie butter.

■ Critical steps: Blending to perfection. Butter is smooth for a reason. You want to get the crumbs to as fine a texture as you can. Also, don't use too much water. This recipe called for 1 cup of water to thin out the butter, but I found that only ½ cup was necessary to get the correct consistency.

■ Comparison to its commercial counterpart: The taste is nearly spot-on to the Lotus brand. However, the color is a little darker and the texture a little grainer than the store-bought variety.

The ingredients in the homemade variety are very basic: Biscoff cookies, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, molasses, vegetable oil and water. The store-bought brand isn't that far off with the addition of soy flour, an emulsifier (soy lecithin) and citric acid.

■ Is it worth it? As much as I smeared my homemade cookie butter on everything in sight (within reason), it was more than double the $4 sticker price you'll see on a jar in the supermarket. Each package of cookies costs $3.99 (two packages are needed), but the rest of the ingredients are already in an average pantry. If you can snag the cookies on sale, then yes, it's definitely worth it.

■ Other notes: If you want a clone of store-bought cookie butter, follow this recipe. You can also experiment with different spices and cookies (chocolate chip cookie butter, anyone?).